GHOSTS OF THE SANGRE DE CRISTO AREA

Sneak preview: Westcliffe, Custer County

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Westcliffe was created by the railroad. Most likely due to personal friendships, they set up their station a short distance away from Silver Cliff. The town was incorporated on May 26, 1887.

Westcliffe is part of the area where the Spanish were actively seeking gold. Legend has it that they filled a cave full of treasure, and it is supposedly near Westcliffe. Captain Horn reported finding a skeleton dressed in Spanish armor in 1869, and a Spanish cross was found near Marble Mountain (thirteen miles from Westcliffe) in the early 1930s. The treasure remains hidden.

On August 17th and 18th of 1889, a heavy rain flooded the creek and ripped out the railroad tracks. From then on maintenance was neglected, and in 1900 the route was abandoned and the rails torn out. Westcliffe endured longer than Silver Cliff, and the Custer County seat was moved from the latter to the former in 1928. Many of the Silver Cliff residents and buildings moved to Westcliffe; the buildings included the Powell House Hotel and Saint Luke's Church.

Today Westcliffe survives on an economy stimulated by agriculture, stock raising, hay farming, and tourism. The 1891 school serves as a tourist information center.

Read more – including how Westcliffe was promoted as an early Rocky Mountain resort – in Ghosts of the Sangre de Cristo Area, one in a series of concise books of the ghost towns and mining camps of Colorado.

25 sites are included in Ghosts of the Sangre de Cristo Area:

 

Bonanza	Colfax	Commodore Camp	Crestone	Custer City
Dawson City	Dora	Exchequerville	Galena	Garland City
Ilse	Liberty	Mosca Station	Music City	Orient
Querida	Rosita	Russell	Saguache	Sedgwick-Kerber City
Silver Cliff	Spook City	Ula	Villa Grove	Westcliffe

  

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